Vlogs of Lily Shen- ChristopherOdd XCOM2 LetsPlay Season 5
by ProfessorPond
Summary: The story of Lily Shen, Chief Engineer of the Avenger, as she aids Commander Odd and Bradford in reviving the XCOM project, and throwing the aliens off Earth. An insight into the world of Engineering within XCOM that we never really see.


Vlog 1- Lily Shen, Chief Engineer. 27 March 2035

I finally met the commander today. Even after being stuck for months in that ADVENT stasis suit and one of Tygan's 'medical procedures', he was still every bit of the dignified and respectable man that Dad's stories made him out to be. Almost makes me wonder what went so wrong during the Invasion...

Still. I'm glad that he's as proud as we are of the Avenger. It's not much- nowhere near as much power as he had during the Invasion- but he promised that he'll do justice to all the blood and tears Dad poured into it. And you know what, I'm sure he will.

Outlander came by for some Gremlin lessons. She's a fast learner, but she really needs to stop flying the little guy into walls.

Hurts to watch to be honest, but I'm not going to criticise an ex-Reaper with an SMG.

Vlog 2- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 6 March 2035

We had our second mission today- for an engineer. I guess Bradford got sick of me begging for some additional help, but honestly I'm tired of clearing alien rubble. Which reminds me...I should probably buy the new engineers drinks. Shovel duty is hardly any way to welcome someone into XCOM.

Our guys are absolutely wrecking faces out there with our limited equipment though. I never thought some old-world assault rifles and Kevlar would do much against ADVENT armour and magnetic weaponry, but they're making it work. Good on them.

Speaking of which, Tygan hasn't stopped obsessing over the alien chip ever since he got it out of the commander's head. He says it's important for future research but pfffft... what we need right now is a way to put magnetised slugs into ADVENT grunts.

We picked up a Repeater last mission and I've been fiddling around with it. It's a device that employs post-penetrational high velocity projectile fragmentation to deal heavy, even lethal damage (Does anyone get the ref), but the commander insists that it's too dangerous for deployment and made me tone it down. Hmph...bummer.

Shen out.

Vlog 3- Chief Engineer Lily Shen 14 March 2035

Well, if our alien totalitarian overlords weren't bad enough, we've also got zombies by the millions now. This would have been the best science fiction ever except well... it's real. And terrifying.

Tygan said that the 'Lost' used to be human, but I really would prefer it if they weren't. Just imagine festering in a radioactive city, wasting away to...this. No-one should ever have to go through that.

I should probably look into the power output of the generators onboard. It's been less stable of late and I should do something about it before it becomes a problem. Especially looks around, and whispers since Tygan's still messing about with god-knows-what and not giving me a hell of a lot to work with. Maybe I'll go on shovel duty with the other engineers.

Ha. Who am I kidding. I'm never going near a shovel again. I've had enough excavation for a lifetime.

Vlog 4- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 21 March 2035

YEA. YOU KNOW WHAT? WHAT THIS ZOMBIE INFESTED ALIEN TOTALITARIAN REGIME NEEDS, IS A DEMIGOD SAMURAI ALIEN THING WITH...some very sophisticated equipment I must say. That katana has more precision than I thought possible. I'd love to take a closer look, but I feel like that'd require us peeling it out of that thing's hands. And with how that thing fights...well I hope we live long enough to do that.

Today was rough for the guys. Dropped them in an abandoned city with god knows how many Lost. All of them got out alive but we didn't save as many resistance members as we wanted to. They're all pretty banged up too so we really need to get that Infirmary up and ready as soon as we can.

Oh yea, they brought back a ... ugh I don't even know how to describe this... *pans camera to a faceless corpse on the floor of the workshop*.

Bradford said it can mimic civilians for extended periods of time, so maybe I can use its mechanisms to make a decoy or something for the troops. But that smell... god I don't really want to work with it. Maybe I'll get Tygan to take it apart first.

How do I get that thing out of here...?

Vlog 6, Chief Engineer Lily Shen, 8 April 2035

Turns out when your guerilla warfare strategy works, there's nothing stopping your enemies from imitating...and it's not flattering when their attempt was this pathetic *giggle*.

We came across the MOCX initiative today. Bradford has had intel about their potential intervention, but it wasn't at the forefront, what with all the other threats running around. The commander seemed a little more unhinged by their appearances about having worked with a few of them in the past...

The guys came across a stun lancer in the field today, and its sword was the new big thing amongst the assault troopers by dinner. I've gotten quite a few requests to recreate it, and, trust me, I've love to. But after the Self-Detonating ADVENT Rifle incident a few days ago I don't think anyone appreciates me experimenting on Advent gear in an uncontrolled environment.

The reaper also reported seeing what they call a Priest. Intel was limited though because of its rapid expiration, and they didn't really have a corpse to bring back for autopsy. Huh, guess faith in the Elders aren't worth a lot against explosives.

Vlog 7- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 15 April 2035

The mission was quite smooth, although Filidh won't be too happy to see the dead anytime soon after nearly turning into one of them himself. He's doing fine, recovering in the makeshift med bay in a spare workshop, but I'm hauling ass to get that infirmary up and running as soon as possible. Not easy though... all this medical equipment that we have no idea how to put together.

Took apart one of those drones they brought back after the mission, I came up with some pretty advanced attachments that our specialists might want for their Gremlins, but unfortunately looks like ROV-R's going to be the guinea pig for testing again.

ROV-R heard buzzing angrily in the background and flying out of the workshop

sigh Yea. He heard that. Oops.

Vlog 8, Chief Engineer Lily Shen, 21 April 2035

That last mission had a whole lot going on, and the guys sure were glad that I managed to modify the MOCX rifles so they were safe for deployment. ADVENT Seems to have no shortage of troop variety to throw our way, and I must admit I'm impressed by the creativity. Snake women with unnatural flexibility? Sure. Exploding flamethrower-wielder? Why not. I wanted to bring back the flamethrower for analysis, but Firebrand wasn't too excited about dragging back something that volatile, nor did Bradford want it on board. Oh well.

Crazy Sword Lady came back with a Shotgun this time, causing Lyra and Rogue to take some serious heat. Infirmary's up and running though, so they'll be up before we know it. But that thing, it refuses to stay dead. Every time we get them on the ropes they simply teleport away and come back just as strong. Is it even possible to root them out completely?

Oh, and before I forget, Tygan finally got his priorities straight and started researching Magnetic Weapons. I can't wait to start tinkering with this technology, and finally give Advent some of their own medicine.

Vlog 8- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 4 May 2035

Turns out there are more of those 'Chosen', which is always good news because XCOM is totally not in over their heads right now. I really hope there aren't any more, but now that I've said that out loud...

ADVENT must have picked up on the Commander's affinity for explosions, because the above Chosen, as well the grunts, showed incredible resistance to explosives in the field. I guess we're going back to the old fashioned way of putting holes in enemies to deal with them. Having said that, there were some really capable resistant fighters in the fray too- doing enough to the Chosen to keep him on his toes. With that level of competence I can only hope that my workmanship is able to keep up.

We're not making much progress on clearing alien debris either- looks like shovel duty is really taking a toll on our engineers. Gotta find a way to keep morale up... we're still really short on facilities and we can use the additional space.

Vlog 10- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 19 May 2035

Picked up fragments of an ADVENT transmission the other day. It sounded pretty important, but Bradford wasn't too hot on the idea of deploying a squad to check it out. Thank god it turned out to be crucial to ADVENT's efforts, otherwise he would have been real pissed at me throwing our troops into battle for nothing.

ADVENT's still pulling out all the stops to try and slow us down. The Muton and MEC we encountered today are both heavily armoured units with a very impressive arsenal of explosive and heavy weaponry. I think I can incorporate their gear with our newly devised Magnetic weaponry to really kit out our Sappers and make them even more deadly.

Oh, and speaking of Magnetic weapons... we have them now! (Woot) The team's been churning them out for our troops around the clock, and I can't wait to see our guys put them to good use. Almost wishing that the commander would let me out into the field so I can personally trial them, and put holes in some aliens.

Vlog 11. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 23 May 2035.

So, the resistance rigged up something to knock down one of their UFOs, which is something I didn't even think was possible with our technology. Maybe we should look in the resistance settlements for new engineers because that looks like the work of an undiscovered genius that we need on board.

The UFO was an absolute goldmine though- never thought I'd get my hands on that much alien material- but I am concerned about safety hazards of storing this much Elerium on board. About to put it all to good use though, with the commander giving approval for a Proving Grounds. The crew must be relieved that my potentially Avenger-ending experiments will finally be confined to a safe room.

It's amazing how much we've accomplished with the commander back. In two months we've already got a good chance of going toe-to-toe with ADVENT, and we've probably got them shaking in their boots right now. It feels so good to finally make them wary of us.

Dad would have loved to see us getting back on our feet. Heck, he'd make some joke about how we can take down ADVENT with four squaddies with my mag rifles. If only he knew his Avenger is finally living up to its name.

Anyways I have to go. The Commander wants a Shard Gun for the Sapper. The man might be losing his marbles but eh. I don't get paid to question him.

Vlog 12- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 2 June 2035

Yiiiiiiikes. That was...ah...an interesting risk the commander took that unfortunately was more than we could chew. We had word on a scientist that was guarded by only a few advanced units. We thought it wasn't anything our strength in numbers couldn't solve.

Then our troops stared down an armoured Beserker that was out for blood, ran around breaking walls, killing VIPs, and generally making life a living nightmare. Damage dealt to it only seemed to further aggravate it and make it even more deadly, so even the good old fashioned way of putting holes in it wasn't doing us much good. I can only hope we develop more advanced ways to drill holes in aliens before we come across this thing again.

I mean...we're not that far off. I've just managed to incorporate magnetic mechanisms to all our equipment, and Bradford dug out more of Dad's old prototype blueprints he kept for me just in case we got this far. They've allowed me to really push the limits on Elerium-powered propulsion, and the new Anti-Materiel rifle shows promise. Maybe I'll get our sniper Potato to trial it in the field... but the lack of safety mechanisms really seemed to bother him.

Hey. You gotta make that tradeoff somewhere.

Vlog 13- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 9 June 2035

The last Guerilla Ops mission was in Newfoundland, which got Central all kinds of worked up. He wouldn't stop muttering about Chryssalids throughout the mission and until the Skyranger touched down after the mission. I guess I do remember a vague story Dad used to tell about this whale that got infested by Chryssalids. Anyways, not my favourite. Hope we cleaned them out.

The mission was tough, but our guys pulled through with their new toys with no more than a katana-length scratch on Lyra. She's fine though, just a little miffed as to why the Assassin wants her dead that badly. Speaking of, we've killed that Assassin like...three times now? And when the cleanup crew get sent to the AO we still see no traces of her weapons- quite tantalising.

The best news though, is that Abigail's back! Dad found her sometime after the Invasion and took her in, and I remember us dismantling pretty much everything from old consoles to leftover alien weaponry. Heck, that's the extent of my engineer training. She's off to the GTS to train to become a tech specialist, which makes sense given the amount of time she spent playing with tech. Looking forward to all the time we'd inevitably have to spend together. Hopefully she's better with a Gremlin because our current tech specialist... *shakes head and sigh*

Vlog 14: Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 11 June 2035

Another day, another alien retaliation. Normally I'd be up there taking notes on weapon performances, but not for retaliations. I can't handle watching innocents get mowed down, so Irina had to take a few moments out of her day to do that for me.

I wish I went up there though. The new sniper apparently went to town on the aliens and somehow managed to do more damage than I calibrated without having the rifle go up in flames from overheating. He seemed happy about it, but none of us could really understand the guy.

Firebrand hauled back a few dead 'Berserkers' from the mission, because Tygan thought we could isolate some kind of concentrated epinephrine from it. Sounded good to me until someone showed me footage of the Berserker turning on its own allies in blind rage. Maybe some things aren't meant to be bottled up, but there's no harm experimenting. I mean...what else are we going to do with a couple of dead Berserkers?

Bradford, in the background, having overheard "SHEN. Your Vahlen is showing!"

Is that...bad?

Vlog 15. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 15 June 2035

I swear ADVENT has some inside intel on us, because none of us expected there to be ADVENT soldiers in the middle of Lost-controlled Newfoundland.

Yea it's Newfoundland again. Bradford was about to lose his mind, and I don't think the commander is really that much of a fan either, judging by his instructions for the team to haul ass out of there.

Unfortunately Sgt Bakes couldn't bail fast enough, and got bogged down by an eventually lethal dose of Bio Viper poison which proved to be his undoing. Even though there was nothing armour or weapons could have done, I still feel responsible. What if there was something we could have made... some antivenom or gas mask... Maybe Tygan will have some ideas.

Abigail got out of training the other day and lent a hand in finishing the frost bomb prototype. Theoretically, the high pressure liquid nitrogen should instantly freeze the vapour in the surrounding air, along with any enemies trapped within the blast radius. Definitely a neat trick to have up our sleeves, and if it doesn't work as intended, the bar will appreciate a way to quickly cool the beers.

Vlog 16. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 23 June 2035

The guys in the field came across a new Chryssalid variant today. Bradford thought they might have been runaways from ADVENT, but to me, they seem plenty aggressive nonetheless. There were a lot of them too... easily would have overrun the squad if Acheron wasn't there to chop them up. It almost seemed too easy... I'm sure there's going to be some catch.

The best news was that we managed to convert a MOCX operative to our cause. Bradford said we've encountered her a few times in the field already, and I guess we got sick of being on the losing side every time. Surprisingly there weren't too many hard feelings, but I'm still going to keep an eye out on her. ADVENT's brainwashing probably isn't going to be removed just like that, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's just biding her time to sabotage us.

I was really excited to finally prototype a new kind of armor for the troops as well, but we were short on funds the other day and the commander emptied the ADVENT trooper corpses at the Black Market. I guess it's more time for me to work out the specific calibrations to maximize agility, but that Kevlar is looking a little bit beaten up... Surely it's going to last one more mission...right?

Vlog 17- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 29 June 2035

The stupid alien samurai came back again. What's this...like every 3 missions now? How many times do we have to teach you a lesson?

Ugh. If it wasn't bad to see her on the field, she somehow got onto the Avenger to slow down our research. The labs reported that half of their lab equipment now needs repair and recalibration, because the rigged grenades she planted on the Mutons detonated halfway during the autopsy. Must have been a hell of a fright for Tygan. Guess I've got my work cut out for me. I suppose I'm just glad that the Assassin was only able to mildly annoy us, but I have a nagging suspicion that she's capable of bringing down the whole Avenger if we're not careful.

Anyways, the mission wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Halfway through some of the guys had trouble controlling the recoil, so it might be a good idea to prototype a few grips for our weapons so they can make holes in ADVENT troops, not the walls behind them...

Abigail's going out for her first assignment soon. I've been pestering her since day 1 to wear proper body armour, but she seems too obsessed with form for function to be too much of a concern. Gosh... I hope she'll be alright. I've lost too many people from my childhood to this war...maybe she'll be an exception.

Vlog 18. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 13 July 2035

Woo. Hell of a day. Commander got me grinding out new gear for the whole squad for the mission tomorrow, and they're looking deadly as anything. Tiring, but extremely rewarding. Can't wait to see what kind of destruction they're gonna sow out there.

Abigail told me about this 'Spectre' they saw in the field. Apparently it's a cloud of nanomachines forming a humanoid, which is going to make the breakdown difficult. They can also create replicas of our troops after knocking them out, which did prove to be a bit problematic when Lyra got caught up in it. I feel like there could be applications stemming from its design, but right now I haven't half a clue what to do with this pile of particles.

The proving ground team has come up with an invasive data collection apparatus called the Skulljack. The blueprints looks solid, but the method of application is...quite brutal. I think some of those engineers need a holiday. Or therapy. Besides, none of the tech specialists seem particularly excited about getting within breathing range of an ADVENT trooper.

Vlog 19. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 19 July 2035

I'm already having doubts about deploying defected ADVENT. Our officer buddy called in reinforcements on the field today...for the enemy. Slowed us down enough to let the aliens destroy the transmitter. The guys seemed pretty inconsolable though, even though they were kicking ass like usual and did all they could. Really hope someone gave the Officer a good hiding after that stroke of genius, especially at such a crucial time.

Quite pleased about the performance of the acid-resistant plating I dreamt up in a hurry before the mission. It didn't last as long as I had hoped, but this is a good start towards the sealed armour we saw ADVENT deploy a few weeks earlier. The guys were just glad to have all their limbs intact and un-melted after this mission.

We finally found the ADVENT trooper corpse we needed to finish the Predator armour project. I've been putting this model under significant experimental scrutiny while we were waiting for the resources, and it's going to be as good as I'll be able to get it. Mind you, anything's better than that beaten-up Kevlar we're kitting our troops out with right now. But I can't imagine a better time for us to put it to the ultimate test- at the Blacksite, a week before Doomsday.

Vlog 20. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 20 July 2035

I honestly didn't know what we expected to find, but... bodies. Thousands upon thousands with more shipped there every day in stasis pods. All of them eventually being...distilled... into a vial of God-Knows-What. Was I looking at the future of humanity if this mission didn't go well?

Thank god it did, against all odds. Despite being knee deep in Aliens and having to watch their backs for the Assassin, the team still put on a clinic under conditions that would have made anyone crack. Promotions all round too- very fitting for a good day of Alien stomping. Frost bomb cooled drinks all round!

I don't think we'll be forgetting Lyra's bravery in a hurry too- it takes something special to sow destruction like she can, while also being willing to sacrifice herself to protect her allies. If only I can fit her with weapons that actually reflect her skills...we'd be done with this war in a month. Speaking of which, I had an idea when I overheard someone talking about rock climbing in the bar the other day. What if I incorporated a pulley system, complete with grapples, onto light armour? Maybe we can achieve the same level of battlefield mobility as the Skirmishers...

Vlog 21. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 1 August 2035

Our last resource ambush mission went pear shaped again, with us obtaining nothing from the mission. The guys were clinical with their shooting as usual, but when you're staring down 80 adversaries, the loot will appear a little less appealing. Honestly, I'm just glad that we didn't lose anyone to that horde of enemies, even if half the squad came back kind of banged up.

A third Chosen showed up not long after deployment...to the surprise of pretty much nobody. His superior optics and caliber had Spud, Deadhead and I drooling back on the ship, but it didn't really save him when the squad got in his face and put holes in him using good old iron sights. As per custom with these Chosen, he left behind nothing for me to work with, which never stops being infuriating.

Not that I have nothing to do. The Codex brain looks like something straight out of science fiction. A receptacle containing enough information to create a self-replicating physical form... reminds me of the brainy people in Dad's engineering crew during the Invasion *chuckle*. Anyways, with our current processing capacities, I can't hope to analyse the data in this thing without breaking every computer on the ship...

...What if I tried that?

Vlog 22. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 5 August 2035

I think the first order of business after the mission is to find the engineer who built the Resistance Mec, buy them a drink, and then conscript them onto the Avenger to replace me as Chief Engineer, because they're obviously better at this whole engineering thing than I am. Sorry Dad. It's true.

The team found out the hard way that the Predator armour wasn't fireproof when Cpt Tater had to roll through fire. Looks like he'll be fine though- I'd think that all the French Fry and Baked Potato jokes on the ride home probably hurt more. Although we should probably let the comms guys know that it's not his real name... someone paged for Cpt Fry the other day to his absolute embarrassment.

Tygan finally got around to deconstructing that pink blob alien faceless thing. He couldn't get much done on account of its rapid degeneration into pink gloop, but got enough out of it for me to start work on the mimic beacon. Squad seems to appreciate it, especially Lyra, who's getting a little tired of being the living decoy.

Alessandra popped round again before we deployed the next covert mission, and dropped off her plants for me to keep alive. I wonder if she knows I'm bad with living things... they break too easily. But if she's out there risking her life to protect our soldiers, protecting her plants is the least I could do.

Vlog 23. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 8 August 2035.

Turns out Tygan wasn't the best at breaking down mechanical enemies, so he passed the MEC breakdown to me. Except he did that by dropping it off outside my dorm at 2am, Gave me a hell of a fright to see an upright MEC pointing its gun at my door first thing in the morning. Maybe it was Tygan's idea of a joke, but if he pulls this crap again I'm telling Bradford who's been leaving Advent Burger wrappers around.

We've been making some serious advances in technology. Breaking down that MEC gave me some impressive insight into how they've adapted a pre-programmed machine to a changing battlefield environment, and I can apply this kind of advanced artificial intelligence to the Gremlins...Maybe make the system infiltrations less of a coin-toss affair.

Most importantly though, I've started going into the file from Dad that I've been avoiding- the one on MEC trooper modification. I've always been concerned with the ethical implications of sticking metal legs on a human being, but given the struggles we've had with combat recently, we may have to start considering it. But all of these people on the Avenger... they're like family to me now. I can't entertain the idea of amputating them as a test subject for this, even if it means potentially winning the war.

Vlog 24. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 2 September 2035.

I feel quite honoured to bear witness to what appeared to be the most humiliating defeat ADVENT has suffered in XCOM memory. Even when outnumbering our squad 2-to-1, they were slowly but surely picked apart. More importantly, I'm glad that this mission has restored the crew's faith in the commander's abilities, after that hell of a month we've just had. Like the commander said, this is when we start turning the tables on the aliens.

Having said that... we're going to remember this monumental day as Operation Blinded Chicken. The less said about that the better.

Getting access to the data in the UFO flight computer proved to be quite useful too. I've used it to make adjustments to the self-stabilisation mechanisms of the Avenger, and complaints about Bradford's flying has largely stopped. I've also given the Engineering team free rein over the actual flight computer for them to develop anti-mechanical ammunition. Man, you should have seen their faces... Nothing makes engineers more happy than getting to break stuff for science.

Bradford seems to be quite fixated on the possibilities of implementing my blueprints for a human-mec hybrid. However, I'm still uncomfortable with this idea. It's one thing to wear a mechanical exoskeleton, but being the mechanical exoskeleton is a whole new ball game.

Vlog 25- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. August 26 2035.

It's times like that last mission which makes me so glad of our resistant fighters on the ground. Without them, I think the team would have been hit harder than with just a few injuries. Even with them taking out straggling aliens, the squad was pretty soundly surrounded by all kinds of Lost, ADVENT and a Chosen Warlock to top it off. They showed some pretty impressive mental fortitude in the face of all this though. Me? I would have lost it ten seconds in,. Guess it's a good thing I'm not down there.

Alien facilities are still popping up left right and center, and by Bradford's estimates, we've got a week tops before the Aliens make their final push to finish the Avatar project.

ADVENT's been smart, building them in areas where we haven't established contact, and our network has been seriously stretched as we try to reach these out of the way locations.

Oh, and the best news. After two weeks of my nagging, Filidh finally agreed to put on more protective gear. Goddamit people- my armour only protects the bits under it. You don't go into battle with an exposed midsection unless you want to get disembowelled. There's nobody to show your abs off to on the battlefield anyways.

Vlog 26. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 3 September 2035

Apparently Vipers have some sort of a hierarchy, and we came across one that's pretty high up in the pecking order- the princess I think it was. Her subordinates all had an innate ability to frost bomb the area when they are killed, which made Acheron's job a hell of a lot harder. Analysis of their corpses did give me an idea for a piece of armour that's similar in function. The prototype should be ready soon, now the hard part is to find a volunteer to be a walking frost bomb. Or a walking fridge.

Honestly, we had barely enough intact corpses for this project because our squad went crazy with the grenades, since there weren't any Lost to worry about. I do hope that the commander will tell the team to exercise more restraint though, because at this rate we're not gonna have anything to work with.

The commander finally gave the go-ahead for the MEC trooper augmentation to be carried out. Tygan personally carried out the surgery, which means that it was a miracle the subject survived. I tried my best to remember what Dad taught me about integrating biological and mechanical interfaces, and I think I did well enough. I mean...the Okya-J is walking around fine, nothing's spontaneously combusting or short-circuiting- I'd say that I did well. Of course, the real test comes with the mission in a few hours.

Overheard Tygan talking to the commander about ADVENT burgers. The nerve of this guy...I swear to god. He's just like a junkie going cold turkey. Wonder what they put in those things...

Vlog 27. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 10 September 2035

This Vahlen has clearly never fought a Berserker before, because I can't imagine any reason why someone would want to make A BERSERKER EVEN MORE TERRIFYING THAN BEFORE.

Thank god for Mecput the one man wrecking crew. I knew the rocket powered hands were a good idea, and after watching him punch down a Faceless in one go, I'm just glad that he's on our side. After all, we're gonna be facing tougher and tougher enemies, might as well give them the upgrade ahead of the curve and give the aliens something to fear. Besides, watching him and Lyra beat up a group of reinforcements right after they teleport in was quite a show.

Our defected Bio trooper buddy turned out to be a faceless, who promptly returned to his own side. Starting to think this whole 'conscription of defectors' plan is more trouble than it's worth... but at least this one didn't call the cavalry in on us. I'm waiting for the day when we get a conscripted Sectopod Hunter on our side. Not likely, but we got a MEC the other day so...a girl can dream.

Vlog 28. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 18 September 2035

Good to see that the commander knows to stress test the guns once in a while, what with dropping the team into Lostville and giving them free rein to mow down as many as they want. Must have been fun...Really hoping for more of these missions. The commander might even let me try my hand at it ...eventually.

Tygan and I have finally finished our analysis of Elerium, despite the Chosen Hunter trying to sabotage by stealing a data pad (and also drawing smiley faces on my rifle blueprints- seriously screw that guy). This crystal... it does pretty much solve most of our energy-related problems in the meantime. I'm definitely looking forward to weaponising its volatile properties. Too bad the engineering crew is a lot less excited about a highly explosive alien compound than I am, because they're not mad like I am, so progress might be sluggish.

The commander commissioned the Skyranger to be repainted again, with absolutely no regard for my warning to not paint over the maintenance hatches. Guess who's going to have to spend an hour trying to pry the damn thing open again...

Vlog 29. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 30 September 2035.

A fully automatic exoskeleton suit... I'm pretty sure our team wasn't expecting to have to kill an enemy and its suit of armour as well, but here we are. ADVENT never seems to run out of ideas for frag magnets. I've already gotten a few requests from the engineering department to maybe implement that kind of AI into Mecput. Not exactly a fan of implementing something that only works when one of our guys die.

Biozerkers are definitely an area of interest though. Constantly regenerating armour is pretty fantastic for keeping the team alive under heavy fire, and saves me from repairing armour for hours on end after missions. The only problem is that it's probably some biological mechanism... Looks like a job for Tygan then. Too organic for me. I'm hoping that the new grenades we developed could be the solution to this heavily armoured problem.

I'm getting word from Bradford that the Chosen Assassin has a fix on the approximate location of the Avenger and that she should be ready to knock us out of the sky any day now. I wish I could say I'm doing my part to stop it, but, as much as it hurts to say, it's not a lot that I can do. We might just have to let it happen, then slap her greedy chosen hands away from our ship.

Vlog 30. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 3 October 2035

Back to back missions after that hell of a sortie? Huh. Guess the commander's on quite a tight schedule. Gave me barely enough time to look over the Skyranger before Firebrand took off with it again. Here's hoping that Filidh got enough rest in between. He's in charge of all the medical supplies. Hate for him to fall asleep in the field, for obvious reasons. Maybe I can talk to the bartender for portable caffeine shots...

Shadow Chamber's coming along nicely. I haven't had any coding practice in a long time and I was never good to begin with, so mishaps were bound to happen. I mean... nothing too catastrophic so far. I've only crashed the ship's systems 3 times trying to set up the interface between the Chamber and the main computer, and we still haven't dropped out of the sky, yet. Having said that, Bradford's patience is probably wearing a bit thin at this point.

To be fair I should probably let ROV-R deal with this IT stuff. The team needs me down at the Defence Matrix because we're under strict orders to complete it in double time. More my speed anyways. I mean, I hope this never has to come in handy, but if the Chosen does come knocking she'll have to get reeeaaaal friendly with our repurposed heavy turrets.

Vlog 31. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 6 October 2035

I was hoping for a complete eradication of MOCX with that last mission, but ADVENT knew enough to not put all their eggs in the same basket. But I'm not sure if it was worth sending four of our best soldiers to the infirmary for some scraps of intel and the location of two more MOCX facilities. Should drop by to see how they're doing...they've really been through hell the last couple of days.

The Assassin showed up again and was promptly deleted. I guess it's comforting that we can do away with a demigod-soldier this easily, but the better news is that she'll have to go back to her cave and lick her wounds before she tries to take down the Avenger anyways. Maybe we'll actually finish the defense matrix in time, what with this crazy schedule the engineering team is on. Quite thankful that we rescued an Engineer during the rescue mission though. We needed an extra pair of hands that can handle a wrench.

The commander dropped by the other day to pick up the new experimental grenade, which unfortunately was deemed 'not cool enough'. I mean, what did he expect from an incendiary grenade? *groans and boos heard in the background*. Tried to explain to him that the grenades are dependent on the volatility and other properties of the Elerium core we used, but all I got was a blank stare and a relayed order for acid grenades from the sappers.

Firebrand was quoting the Terminator for a whole day after the rescue mission. Wonder if ADVENT would come up with Skynet if we left them alone for long enough... I mean I guess they made Julian. Eh. Enough lazy thoughts. Back to the office.

Vlog 32. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. ? October 2035.

Well. The Assassin caught up with us and now we're dead in the water and surrounded by heavy artillery. Hooray. Bradford's just briefing the squad now, so I guess I'll record this among the piles of ruined armour.

This is just the cherry on the steaming crap pile of a cake we've had the past few days. The last mission was a complete failure that sent the whole squad to the infirmary, and Cyla to her death. That hurt...I'll miss those afternoons where she'd pop into the workshop and she'd watch me work in silence while some psionic wizardry of hers kept me from losing my patience. What wouldn't I do to have her here right now- heck, what wouldn't any of us do? Rest in peace Cyla. I'll personally make sure ADVENT gets what's coming to them for this.

No. That stupid hunk of genetically modified meat doesn't make up for it. If it wasn't for that stupid thing Cyla would probably still be alive. Gosh I hate this Vahlen...and I don't even know them!

The Shadow Chamber was completed right before the crash landing knocked the functionality out of it. I booted up some of its basic functions, and it showed that the aliens are deploying all their best units to try and end us here. I'm glad that we have upgraded turrets to watch our soldiers' backs, but I think we're gonna need more than a few turrets to dig ourselves out of this one.

I guess they need me to keep an eye on the enemy artillery and the Avenger's hull integrity, so I'd best stop moping now. I suppose this is XCOM's Waterloo, then. Vigilo Confido. Shen signing off, for hopefully not the last time.

Vlog 33- Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 15 October 2035

Well. We survived. The Avenger took a fair beating and every time that blasted cannon hit her I felt it in my bones too- and that's not from the ship shaking apart at the hinges. We were still solid enough to fly out of there- it's almost like Dad predicted that we'd eventually have to take some heat and hid the critical systems deep within the ship. The outer shell of the ship is completely effed though. Lyra and I had to abseil down from the roof to repair the sides...while the ship was still in the air! Her Templar agility does her credit, even despite her injuries. Or maybe she just appreciated the stress relief from hammering panels.

Bradford told me that the Frost grenade may have saved the mission, by freezing two Berserkers who were breathing down on the whole squad and sent Lyra and Filidh into a bit of a fit. To be honest, I made that thing as a joke to get rid of some Elerium cores with excessively endothermic properties. Never thought it'd even see the battlefield. Ha Dad- told you my dumb ideas would be worth something one day!

I shudder to think what would have happened without the Turrets either. We'd probably be swarmed early on and called it a day there and then. Whoever calibrated them is gonna get a beer from me because that was top notch work. Quite entertaining watching them knock down ADVENT like pins, but I'm concerned that I'm gonna see that again soon, what with the damn Warlock on our tail as well.

Anyways, I've got to go kit out a squad for another mission. Yup. I think the commander's gone mad too, ROV-R... You think it might be the ADVENT burgers?

Vlog 34. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 24 October 2035

Outgunned and outmatched. Again. I don't know how long we can keep losing a soldier every other mission. The mood on the Avenger is worse than the atmosphere at a cemetery, filled with mourning instead of pride and ambition. I fear for the future, because Dad said this is how one starts to lose a war.

We were completely outgunned this time. Those Custodians and Sectopod ate the bullets like nobody's business and came back for more. Magnetic rounds stopped being the silver bullets they were three months ago, and Tygan's taking his sweet time with the Plasma rifles. But what then? That's only one of four weapons, and if they all take this long, we'd be long gone before we can fully upgrade our armoury. And with all due respect commander, what we need right now aren't more spider suits. We need a miracle- a Deux Ex Machina of a miracle.

Poor Noodles. It's never easy to pick one team member to save, and I can't imagine how difficult it is to leave a friend bleeding out behind you while you followed direct orders to save the other. I don't blame the commander though. There isn't a correct answer for this.

Wait. No there is. The correct answer is the Fulton Harness. Commander, if you order one more thing that you never use, I'm pulling a Firebrand and going on strike too.

Sigh... Nope. Pull yourself together Shen. You're a figurehead of the resistance too. You can't let them see you like this. But how? I'm sick of the aliens cheesing whatever new trick I pull out of the bag. If nothing more, it feels like nothing I do even matters against them. They just shrug it off with meaner enemies and thicker plating.

ROV-R zaps Shen and makes disapproving ROV-R noises

Ow. Ok fine. I suppose I should remember the Engineering Academy motto, per angusta, ad augusta. Hang in there, XCOM- it's not over yet.

Vlog 35. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. ? October 2035

OH YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS. SECOND TIME THIS WEEK I'M RECORDING AMONG PILES OF BROKEN ARMOUR AND EQUIPMENT IN A CRASHED AVENGER. Sigh. Let's see if we can save the Avenger back to back. Goddammit Warlock...I just repaired this thing! You have any idea how hard it is to convince people to repair the ship while it's in flight?

Guess this is payback for us ransacking the ADVENT UFO. Absolute goldmine of resources as per usual, but we lost the flight computer when a Sectopod Hunter exploded next to it and erased it from existence. The good news is that now we know blowing up the flight computer turns off the distress beacon, which is good in a clutch, but someone needs to tell Abizi that blowing up the computer isn't the same as hacking it before our next data retrieval mission.

At least we've run them out of Sectopods according to the Shadow Chamber count, but this is still not gonna be easy. They really couldn't wait three more days for the Plasma Rifle research to finish, could they? Had been looking forward to deploying those and laughing in their faces.

One day...

Vlog 36. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 30 October 2035

Repair duty was less of a pain this time, because the commander cleaned up their siege implements fast enough, but it does annoy me a little to have to fix the same panels for the second time this week. Even the novelty of abseiling down the side has given way to frustration.

If only we can fix people this easily... everyone who went out today came back shaken, tired and probably unfit for missions for a good couple of weeks. Most of them have picked up a fear along the way too. The infirmary's gonna be busy for sure, but we have a few medics from the templars to help out. Not sure how they do it, but as far as I'm concerned Psionics seem to be a silver bullet. Definitely gonna be needing a few drinks to get the spirits up after this.

The plasma weapon finally crawled out of Tygan's lab, and that sleek, mean son of a mother is the prettiest thing I've seen in a long time. I tried to test it on the range, but our targets obviously weren't designed with Elerium powered rounds in mind, because that shot chewed through 3 targets and the wall of the range. Can't wait to put an actual alien in the way of that.

In completely unrelated news, I'm now banned from the range.

We're getting into pretty unprecedented territory for research now, and everything we know about the properties of the stuff we're making is purely theoretical. The proving ground team put together a prototype radioactive Elerium round that also inflicts insanity, which I don't even know how the dreamt of, but Geneva probably wouldn't have been ok with that. Upside of working in a Dystopian world I guess... no more restrictions of weapons.

Halloween tomorrow. Firebrand's probably going to put on some horror movie. In case you haven't noticed, Brandy... we're living in one.

Vlog 37. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 1 November 2035

Laser lightshows are the best- I've loved them since I was a little kid. But when it's accompanied with the screams of dying ADVENT it's *chef's kiss*.

The first deployment of plasma rifles were a complete success, even if we had some problems with the recoil at the beginning, the pure unadulterated power of elerium proved to be a little more than the aliens expected. The team loved them too, but mainly because the light casing finally allowed them to paint their gun the colour they want. Have you ever seen a bunch of battle-hardened grown men and women sitting on the floor of the barracks with paintbrushes? It's the most adorable thing ever...not that I'm allowed to ever speak of it again.

The defence matrix is still pulling its weight even when the Avenger is up and running, having just foiled a sabotage attempt by the Hunter. I didn't quite catch the details, but according to Beth it involved the Hunter falling off the side of the ship when the turrets shot through his grapples. Must have been fun to watch. Hope she told him to do a flip on the way down.

Tygan dropped off the dissected Berserker Queen corpse at the Proving Grounds the other day, and I have no idea what he expects us to do with it. There's been some jokes about skinning it to make a new suit, but frighteningly that's getting closer to what we're planning on doing. Perhaps we can leverage some of the intact muscle to increase the strength of the wearer, but I haven't been able to convince anyone to wear a Berserker's skin, even after significant modification, and the promise that the suit includes fake abs. I mean I was sure Filidh would have been up for that last bit…

Vlog 38. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 13 November 2035

That Sectopod Annihilator...my god she's magnificent. Armed to the teeth and heavily plated without sacrificing any mobility, plus long range comms to bring in friends. It's honestly not a surprise that we lost the first war if we were trying to fight these with conventional assault rifles. People have been talking about how these are rumoured to contain a Sectoid pilot, which makes me extremely reluctant to break it open because the last thing I want to see is a dead sectoid in such a pristine machine.

The engineering team managed to convince Blacklight into wearing the R.A.G.E suit, which performed quite well. Interestingly enough, he reported sudden rushes of adrenaline in combat, which even Tygan couldn't explain, since the armour is literally skin and meat. The bartender also reported Blacklight being a lot more brazen in the bar when wearing that, so Bradford had to limit its usage to deployment only.

We have to deploy real soon if we're to stop the Avatar project, which is within hours of completion. It's a shame that we won't have our high priority plasma cannons and lances researched by the time of deployment, so uh...so much for me trying to speed up that research schedule by helping Tygan with the Archon dissection. It's a beautiful specimen, and according to some of the older crew they used to be Floaters from the Invasion. Just goes to show how far the Elders can mess with genetics, I suppose. Quite a terrifying thing, and it's a pretty terrifying preview of what might happen if the Avatar project isn't stopped.

Anyways, the commander's asking me to reconfigure a lot of the weapons, so that's probably another couple of hours in the barracks for me. Least I could do for such an important mission, so I'd better sign off now.

Vlog 39. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 14 November 2035

Beautiful thing...that Gatekeeper. The perfect model of efficiency while also maintaining a very appealing visual profile. I mean, or so it appeared. The squad kind of melted it into a puddle with Acid and Elerium poison-enough so that the armoured shell is damaged beyond any kind of analysis. Also, it's not purely mechanical, much to my disappointment, but rather piloted by some kind of psionic octopus.

I mean, as much as I hate ADVENT, they do have a tendency to make their murdering machines incredibly beautiful. Like that Archon King...now THAT looks like a proper ruler. The energy readings coming off his weapon was also quite concerning, and I wasn't sure if plated armour can do much to protect against a direct hit. Thankfully, harnessed liquid nitrogen came to the rescue again, and the mighty Archon King became glorified target practice for a few minutes before he decided to leave with some dignity remaining. Hope he comes back soon...would love to get my hands on that gear.

After deliberation, we also decided to trial the R.A.G.E suit on someone more sensible and with a smaller ego. Lyra's preference for close quarters combat made her the best candidate, and after the mission she also reported sudden rushes of adrenaline that she had difficulty controlling. However, she reported no other physiological and mental side effects, so we can probably chalk Blacklight's brazen behaviour at the bar the other day down to the fake abs. It's quite a fascinating mechanism how even skin an-

*Outraged scream from Abizi suddenly heard in the background, followed by shouts about how could someone skin such a magnificent creature. *

...We told Abizi we were going to skin that Berserker right? No? Oh boy.

Vlog 40. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 18 November 2035.

You might be wondering why I'm recording this in my quarters instead of working at the proving grounds. It's because I'm on strike. Yeah I promised I would if the commander insists on not using Fulton Harnesses which I spent so long on. And I will continue to be on strike until he starts respecting the goddamn time the engineering department spends on this stuff.

... or tomorrow. The Warlock screwed with our comms and now we lost all contact with the Covert squad. The Spokesman can't keep an eye on them unless we have a direct line to them. I hope they're safe, but I wouldn't put it past ADVENT to ambush them in the chaos. Also we're like a day away from Beam cannons and the marines are getting quite impatient waiting for their new toys.

First time we had to leave a mission with the Chosen still standing. I think the commander has learnt from the shaky month we've just had, and is trying to minimise injuries, which I assume is a big relief to the poor guys in the infirmary who have been worked off their feet. Besides, a quick analysis of his armour showed that he has become more resilient to close ranged attacks and completely immune to melee, so I'm pretty sure our normal plan of dogpiling him wouldn't have done us any good. Spud's also been talking to me a lot about maybe imitating the Hunter's rifle to improve his... and I kid you not... 'Potato' , but honestly that superior alien engineering just goes completely over my head. Just goes to show how much I still have to learn.

Vlog 41. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 29 November 2035

Bio ADVENT is turning out to be far more of a problem than I had anticipated, because, turns out, humans don't respond to toxins well at all. Izana had her hands full that mission trying to keep everyone alive with every single one of her medkits, and if it wasn't for her we would have gotten hit with far more than just a few scrapes and a couple of infirmary days. We've recently emulated the acid rocket launcher used by the Bio rocket troopers to great effect, but our last test prototype got melted by the payload from the inside, so we're not taking a risk with deploying that...yet.

*Commotion heard in the background, followed by an unmistakably Scottish "FREEEDOM!"* Huh. Guess they finally let Filidh out of the loony bin. About time we gave Izana some time off. She deserves it from her exemplary performance these past two weeks. Filidh's probably itching to pump a few aliens full of Elerium too. Hope they got all the crazy out of him though... Him freaking out on us with this much fire power is probably not going to be healthy for anyone.

Our marines are pretty happy to finally get some heavier ordinance with their new Plasma Cannons too. Laying down a zone suppression is a lot more fun when you're firing off an entire clip at once, rather than one shot at a time, or I've heard . Abizi's a little miffed that the commander chose to let Kage take the Cannons on their maiden voyage out into the field, but to be fair it's probably wise to let a less insane soldier trial experimental weapons. I mean... we've seen how he behaved when he saw plasma grenades for the first time. Last thing anyone needs is a repeat of that.

Vlog 42, Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 7 December 2035

Sometimes I wonder how we've managed to last this long in this war, when the commander has these...lapses...in thinking ability...Screw it. I don't have to be polite when he's not around. He's an actual goof sometimes. How do you forget to pick up the VIP, when that is literally the mission objective? I tapped into the Templar comms during the mission, and there was some pretty colourful language going on in there. Something about feeding the Commander to the Berserkers.

Freyja... god that woman is insane. I don't know if it's just experience from living in abandoned cities, or from their chrysalid-heavy diet, but her single-handed rescue of the VIP was a masterclass. I don't even know how someone can remain this cool while surrounded by Lost in the middle of Lostville, but she somehow managed and pretty much cleaned out the city of all its resident Lost population. Anyways, the scientist she brought back had some pretty extensive data on climate derived from ice cores. Apparently, they proved that ADVENT has been significantly worsening the Earth's atmosphere, which is going to be a good recruiting tool. Too bad they decided to store all those gigabytes of data on Gremlins, which caused a brief scare when they all started to crash due to the sudden increase in data load.

The team came back pretty hurt, because the Archon King showed up again with some missiles, and sent the entire squad down a building the fast way, before disappearing with what I believe to be its last breath. Filidh did what he could to get everyone back to fighting shape, but the infirmary's still going to be full of guys disgruntled from that fall.

They brought back two experiences Psionics too, and I'm more than glad for the calming aura that all Psionic soldiers seem to bring with them. The French psionic soldier Cristal seemed pretty interested in the modifications I've made to turn her rifle into an elerium powered weapon and tried to ask me questions, but my three years of high school French has long left me. Quite ironic that. in a time when all of humanity is united against a common enemy, we're still divided by such silly things as a language barrier.

Vlog 43. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 8 December 2035.

Another retaliation, and ADVENT let the Berserkers out for a run again. Must have been terrifying... I can't get over how brutal this whole retaliation thing is, no matter how many times I have to watch the missions for data. But since we gave Spud his new toys, they proved to be little bother to the team, although a few Civilians did have a very bad day out there. *she bows her head*

We let Cristal trial the RAGE suit this time, because we thought it might have influenced the mind via some kind of psionic mechanism that originates from the muscle. Unsurprisingly, she did seem more composed than the previous two test subj- I mean wearers since she didn't recklessly charge in as often as the other two. However, she might have used that pent-up rage to power some psionic...things, because near the end of the mission she dropped a psi meteor on an unfortunate Hunter. Her latent psionic powers are undeniable, but unfortunately we haven't gone enough into the field of Psionics to give her a better amp beyond her own one.

Abizi ordered some more acid grenades, because the madman always seems to be out of them, and I think his promotion warrants some upgrades. I've doubled the concentration of the acid and added a few nasty surprises in the mix. I'm sure he'll be pleasantly surprised, but that's banking on the fact that he's not going to try juggle them like he did a few days ago.

*Unintelligible Intercom noises*

What's that? Assassin's stronghold? Something about killing off the Assassin for good? Oh sweet. Maybe I'll get my hands on that Katana yet!

Vlog 44. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 13 December 2035.

This is the best early Christmas present I could have hoped for! The team managed to finish off the Assassin, and this little engineer finally got her hands on the mean, sleek weapons that I've been eyeing since half a year ago. I can't wait to replicate it for our own deployment, although I am a little disappointed that we won't be able to use the originals... something about the Elders having some kind of attachment to them. Not that anyone would be thrilled to use a Katana with this much human blood on it anyways. Maybe we'll hang it up in the barracks, to remind the team that the Chosen, and anything else the Elders can throw our way, can be killed if we put enough rounds into them.

We've also realised the mechanism by which the Chosen can indefinitely regenerate. The Assassin, and I assume the others too, have this sarcophagus which is infused with psionic energy, that rapidly heals them back to full potential. Clearly something that we could implement in the infirmary...if only we had the faintest idea of how it worked. Oh, and also we broke it pretty badly during the battle, so it might be a mystery that will elude us forever.

I've got to hand it to Lyra honestly, chasing after the Assassin and getting in her face so she can't get a direct line to the rest of her team. That's some crazy bravery right there, and even after being knocked around by a Berserker she didn't relent for a moment. Must have been taxing though, if the state of her RAGE suit was anything to go by. Guess it's not too surprising that she fell asleep waiting for that suit to be repaired. I'm glad she's learning to control those rushes of adrenaline, and harnessing it to great effect. Too bad Abizi is still not over the fact that the suit is made out of his dear Berserker Queen.

Vlog 46. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. Christmas Day 2035.

No matter what kind of hellscape you find yourself in, it's important to take a little time on Christmas to appreciate what you've built over the past year and the people that you have around you. Thanks for everything, Avenger Crew, and hopefully we can celebrate the next Christmas on our own planet. Vigilo Confido.

ADVENT must have been feeling generous too, because they gifted us a loaded UFO guarded only by sectoids. Maybe they wanted to switch up their strategy after the Assassin's defeat, but it was as good of an idea as it appeared as it quickly turned into live-fire target practice for the team. Anyways, although they may have cut corners on the defensive complement, they certainly didn't on the payload, and it was the biggest haul of Elerium we've gotten in a few months. All the better that Tygan's team hauled ass to get the Powered Armour researched, so now our team is decked out in shiny, Elerium powered protection- all thanks to that cache of Elerium.

And now onto more mundane matters. A part on the Skyranger broke down and made us miss an opportunity to carry out a guerilla strike against ADVENT. I think it was from the black market, which...explains it. Nonetheless, Firebrand proceeded to accost me and lock me in the Hangar until I fixed it. Serves me right I guess. I should have checked every part that goes on the ONLY transport ship we have, and this little mishap probably would have earned me a scolding by Dad. Oh, and she wanted me to spare a suit of Warden armour for her troubles, because apparently fake steel abs is all the rage on the Avenger right now. Ten bucks Bradford limits this thing to deployment only within the next few days.

Vlog 47. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 12 January 2036

The new year ticked over and nothing's really changed. My resolution is to be more adventurous with my research to give our troops the biggest edge against the aliens. Been doing well with that too. Mecput definitely appreciated further reinforced armour, especially after that last mission when he got kind of beaten up from all sides. I'm sure the troops appreciated him taunting the enemy to give the others a bit of breathing room- way to put all that bulk and attitude to good use!

Upgraded the Skirmisher ripjack to now use energy instead of physical blades as well. Our resident Skirmisher Quasar is sick of eyeing everyone else's upgrades while he's stuck on magnetic gear, so about time I suppose. Not that you can tell he's on inferior equipment from his impact on the field...he's just that good. Fitting way to welcome the new Skirmisher we picked up too, appropriately called Mor Balaten. Probably not his real name, but since his vocabulary is limited (like most ADVENT grunts) we'll take what we can. Trying to fit him with armour was also a huge pain, because, as you might expect, nobody-not even Quasar- knew what armour size "Mor BalaTEN" was. she pauses Oh no way...

screen suddenly goes dark for some time like it was hastily dropped. Picked up by Shen an indeterminate amount of time later

Huh why is this still on? Anyways, Cristal has been helping us with the Psi amp research, mostly just be channeling psionic energy into receptacles. We're not getting very far because said receptacles keep breaking, but once we manage to isolate psionics energy we can do a lot of research on ways to amplify it. Too bad there aren't any references as to what to expect... issues with being pioneers in Alien tech I guess. Not the worst problem to have...well, until we accidentally create a void rift in the lab. Not that it ever happened or anything...

Vlog 48. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 13 January 2036

Look. I don't know what ADVENT feeds their mech troopers, but there is no conceivable way to make theirs that much tankier (and admittedly less profane) than our Mecput. Anyways, Menace found that out the hard way in the field today, when Mecput tried to take one down but ended up taking a lot of heat and poison. Fortunately, the time honoured tradition of putting more bullets in any new and intimidating enemies worked again. Looking forward to breaking this thing down to get a masterclass in Mectrooper design.

Speaking of Mecput, he's had a hell of a run after his augmentation. His automated punch when the system detects an enemy just gets him thrown in the deep end every time, and as a result he comes face to face with some pretty tough enemies. I have no idea how he manages to hold his ground every time... I would have lost my mind long ago. He jokes that the indestructible (Spoilers. It's not. ) metal suit is the main reason, but we all reckon fear just isn't part of his vocabulary.

The commander took Rogue for a runout last mission too. I suppose with that new Arashi shotgun we retrieved, it's only fair to get our assaults back in shape to make the most out of it. The downtime didn't seem to affect him at all. Heck, it probably made him even more out for blood, the way he was running all over and blowing holes left and right- and this time I'm sure it wasn't just the RAGE suit adrenaline rush. Would love to get him to trial the Katana while he's on this rampage, but he seemed pretty accustomed to the axe... need to remind him that the Katana is not throwable.

Vlog 49. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. January 2036.

*Vlog opens with Shen mounting the camera on ROV-R before kneeling down and sweeping up the bits of broken glass around the retrieved the psionic gate. Other members of the Avenger crew can also be seen in the background with dustpans.*

Well... we've finally put the Shadow Chamber to good use today, and I'm using 'good' with its absolute loosest definition. We were able to reconstruct a simulacrum of the codex, except it seemed very much alive, despite Tygan affirming me that it's well beyond the point of sentience. Questionable at best, but we did what we needed to do. The data connection to the Avenger proved to be useful in retrieving some relevant data regarding the origins of the Codex. Unfortunately, we must have triggered some protective protocol, because the supposedly dead Codex came back to life and started to overload our systems. Long story short, that thing nearly shut down the Avenger, erased almost all of our retrieved data, and shattered the Shadow Chamber so badly that Spud heard it halfway across the Avenger... *she gestures around* as you might be able to see. However, Tygan managed to retain a little of what we retrieved, which gave us coordinates for deployment.

I had to work triple overtime to get the latest WAR suit up and running for that deployment. It's essentially an Elerium-ised EXO suit, but it's the pinnacle of what the Engineering department has achieved over the past year, and I doubt we can ever top this with even with any alien tech that we might come across. Noodles volunteered to take it for its first run, and of course she looked absolutely stunning, to the envy of pretty much everyone on board (me included. Why do I never get to play with all these neat toys I make?). I hope this makes up for the fact that she would come back, royally pissed off, with burning hair a few hours later... *Noodles heard angrily disagreeing in the background.*

Turns out, the Codex originated from a Psionic gateway, aptly guarded by one of those Gatekeepers, an ungodly number of Chrysalids and spectral zombies, and of course the Warlock, who failed to match his extensive bark with a similar bite. Maybe it's just Menace becoming better soldiers with better equipment. but ADVENT still seems to think we're no more than squaddies with mag rifles. It must be fun to prove them wrong again and again though.

Anyways, back to the gate. Bradford and the commander seemed pretty insistent upon bringing the gate back onto the Avenger. Now I'm not in a place to criticise the commander's decisions, but I hope he saw that Gatekeeper teleporting out of that thing. Heck, it could be pointed at an Alien barracks on the other end, and the last thing we need is an entire squad of Aliens barrelling into the Shadow Chamber. Abizi has also tried to climb into it to find more Berserkers after he saw the Gatekeeper come out of it. In the interest of public safety, I think the first order of business is to find the off button on this stupid door.

Vlog 50. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 26 January 2036

*Vlog opens to a very disgruntled Shen with bags under her eyes and messed up hair *

Ugh... if ADVENT can stop crashing the Avenger immediately after I've repaired it, it would be much appreciated. Right after I finished patching up the Shadow Chamber, a UFO dropped by with an EMP and knocked us right out of the sky. The crash broke a few things across the Avenger (including every mirror on board, which royally ticked off Noodles again), but the main problem was the EMP, which scrambled the Ship's systems, including those used for decryption in the Shadow Chamber. I mean, I shouldn't be complaining about having to do repairs... it's my job after all. But when it's for the second time within a week, it's going to grind the gears a little.

I think ADVENT honestly saw this as an opportunity to end XCOM once and for all, because they even brought along the Archon King and his entourage. Too bad that we've softened up the King enough for him to be far less effective than ADVENT probably anticipated. It's a magnificent specimen nonetheless, and Tygan's already started on dissecting him for potential armour applications in the future. Yep. We're skinning another alien ruler. Nobody tell Abizi. He's still distraught about us having to push the mind controlled Berserker overboard.

Beth is still doing a stellar job in the Defense Matrix with regards to keeping the turrets maintained. Those things might not look like much, but they've definitely paid for themselves ten times over. There are even rumours that the commander is going to ask us to put wheels on these things and deploy them into missions instead. Not sure how Beth would feel about that to be fair... she's grown kind of attached to " Curly, Larry, Moe and Spike" and the last thing she wants is to put them into more danger. She's already a bit upset about the unfortunate fate of Spike, involving an assault trooper's shield

Vlog 51. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 3 February 2036

Huh. Guess the EMP interfered with the Shadow Chamber more than we anticipated. The generated mission intel conveniently left out a full sized Forged Sectopod, which resulted in Talon taking a full round of Sectopod rounds to the face. I hope he doesn't blame me for this, even though I'm probably most responsible. If nothing else, I have to be more vigilant about maintaining the Shadow Chamber systems in the future. It's a fragile piece of tech after all, and if it fails on us again on an important mission I might not have time to regret it.

The beam grenade launcher was a treat. Projectile motion isn't always the most reliable way to deliver explosive payloads, as Menace have found out, so the Engineering team decided to make a more direct means of...putting grenades where the soldier intended it to go. It also bypassed a few minor shortcomings, such as grenades not being able to turn in midair, as MOCX discovered today. Would have loved to see the look on their faces when the acid grenade turned a corner right into their huddle.

Tygan let me into his lab again to break down the Sectopod we killed a while back, since his training didn't include deconstructing alien mechanical walkers. Anyways, felt like a little kid again, crawling across that giant thing. Surprisingly this is a completely autonomous unit, with no sectoid pilot as Bradford had suspected. Was quite surprised that nobody had actually opened one of these things up during the Invasion to confirm, but then I doubt they could even put a dent in it back then.

Vlog 52. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 8 February 2036.

*Vlog opens with Shen carefully polishing replicas of the Katana and Arashi with a cloth*

Still can't believe that I'm holding onto these things with my own hands. Of course, they're not the exact same ones, but then I'm super glad that we even got this close to wielding a weapon forged by the Elders themselves. Anyways, ADVENT seems pretty fond of this anti-armour technology, since they put it on the weapons of all their advanced troops. All the better for us, now that we have the means of replicating it and using it against them. Still not sure how Tygan made that breakthrough needed for replicating the technology by dissecting a Psi Viper though.

*The Workshop door behind her opens a crack. Shen notices and shouts without turning around.* No. I don't care who you are. You can't take a photo with the Katana. Bradford made it very clear it's deployment only! *Door closes quickly*

Yeaaa. Everyone's pretty obsessed with this weapon too. I'm sure the assaults will all have their turn with it on the battlefield, but as of now Rogue seems too attached to his throwable axes to give them up for the Katana. *She sighs* If only the commander is willing to actually use the new stuff I make. I'm willing to look over the Fulton Harnesses and stuff like that. But advanced equipment like.. *she pulls out a prototype Vorpal Rifle* this? Does he have any idea how much sleep and resources the engineering department gives up to get these weapons ready for deployment? *She huffs* Screw my shooting range ban. I rushed to get this stupid gun ready today, and I'm damn well going to make sure it gets used today, even if it's on cardboard aliens

Vlog 53. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 9 February 2036

Looks like the Hunter got himself some upgrades, namely some melee proof armour and a teleportation device. Too bad he's not that adept at using the latter though, since he teleported himself straight into our line of fire and proceeded to get his hooded butt kicked back to his Chamber. Listen up, buddy. If you're not gonna use your new toys properly, there are enough people on the Avenger who will.

By the way, has the Andromedon always been able to shoot acid grenades from his cannon? Sure doesn't look possible, but that's what happened on the field today. Quite a few guys out there got some acid burns, and Noodles' hair was again a casualty of war. I really have to start making helmets obligatory for her, but I mentioned it once, and she glared at me for the rest of the day.

ADVENT forces were certainly uneasy when they saw the Arashi being deployed against them. I suppose they're used to seeing the purple trail heading away from them. It's certainly gratifying to see them on the receiving end of such power, just to remind them that even their gods aren't safe from XCOM. Speaking of the Assassin's weapons though, somebody snuck into the workshop last night and took the short blade of the Katana. Not even sure why they'd take only half of the thing... I mean if you want photos you're going to want the whole... she trails off as she hears knocks on the door behind her. She stands up, opens the door and picks something off the ground. She comes back with a puzzled expression as she reads a note while holding a plate of sushi

Um... so apparently it has been Noodles' lifelong dream to make sashimi using a Katana? At least someone's putting my handiwork to use. If only the Assassin can see her beloved knife being used as a kitchen implement...This is probably against the rules Bradford put in place too. Oh well Noodles, I won't tell if you don't. Cheers.

Vlog Engineer Lily Shen. 17 February 2036

Another facility gone with a light show. You never really get sick of watching these, maybe it's because of the satisfaction that we've just set ADVENT back a few months. Having said that, I'm not sure why we needed an X4 there. The Sectopod was already stomping around the place and likely would have demolished the walls if we gave it enough time.

The Viper King showed up as well, and after two terrifying alien rulers a big snake suddenly seemed tame. Menace had a nasty surprise when they realised that it was immune to freezing, which allowed it to escape after Spud took a few chunks out of its hide when he hit Freyja's homing mine. That's all well and good to kill the Viper King, but I'm concerned that the pelt might be too damaged to be used for armour. And if we don't send Abizi into another indignant rant with another alien ruler suit it'll be too soon.

Cristal... she's the best. I think she picked up on my annoyance at my creations not being used, and she specifically requested the Vorpal Gatling rifle for deployment. That purple energy beam looked right at home with all the other purple-y psionic things going on around her. She seems to share my affinity for new things, because she was also the first to volunteer to try out the Psi Armour. That did lead to the slight problem that she now refuses to part with it, on account of how "chic" she looks in it. I mean.. she does... I might have stared a little too long too.

buzzes heard on intercom, issuing some kind of order to Shen

What? You're giving all the advanced gear to CHUCKLES? INCLUDING the Arashi? Sir he can't even hit a faceless if it's three meters in front of him and tickling his head.

angrier intercom orders

Gah fine! I suppose I need to teach him how to use the Katana without losing his appendages.

Vlog 55. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 29 February 2036

A peaceful week. I don't think we've ever had a whole week where there were no offensive or defensive deployments. Not that I'm complaining though, the crew could always use a few days off, especially how hectic things can get at the drop of a hat. Some of the troops have been picking up hobbies: Kage and Acheron with roleplaying games and Abizi with grenades. Tygan and I have just been working our way through the pile of alien corpses we've accumulated in the cold storage. Quite a collection we have back there to be honest, I don't even know why it hasn't gotten a lot more manky.

Unfortunately all that dissecting turned up not a lot of note. The Archon King gave us the most exciting innovation in the Icarus Suit, which is pretty fantastic to look at, but I'm mainly proud of the fact that we've compacted a jetpack enough to fit it on a bit of armour. I'm sure Spud and Deadhead would appreciate all the new Snipers' Nests this opens up, but as of now I've had trouble convincing people to try it on. Guess I can't blame them... I supposed they heard all the 'accidents' during the testing phase for this thing.

Oh also, Celestial Gauntlets for the templars at last. Acheron was so pumped for the upgrade she took them for a test drive in the range right away. Set a few cardboard dummies on fire which scared the crap out of me when I showed up a while later to clean up the carnage. No matter, just do that for me in the real battlefield, and the hours I spent on the gauntlet and the cleanup would be worth it.

*buzzing heard on intercom, followed by message calling for Shen*

Oh. That must be Abizi's explosives conference he was ranting about earlier. I'm glad the man has a hobby but did he honestly have to pick something this volatile? *She shakes her head* Sure hope he doesn't get too fired up talking about his toys or I might not make it out of this meeting in one piece. Remind me why I even let him near the damn grenades again?

Vlog 56. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 3 March 2036

So it's been a year. A year where we actually had a fighting chance against ADVENT, and I'd like to think that we've made the most out of it. In terms of technological advancements, yes, but we're still none the wiser with regards to ADVENT"s true intentions. I'm hoping that the blacksite vial we've been analysing will bring some insight into that, but the Shadow Chamber is honestly not as reliable as I thought it would be. I guess that's partially my fault, since I programmed the thing...

Anyways, another supply raid happened a few days ago, and unsurprisingly a few crates were lost in the crossfire due to dubious aiming and the sappers being a little too trigger happy with the grenade launcher. The new innovation of an extra grenade carrier slot really didn't help with the latter either. Dad used to always make fun of the Head XCOM Scientist being incredibly up tight about troops using grenades, and now I honestly see where she's coming from. I wonder if the Sappers have ever heard of the concept of 'restraint', because I'm already scraping the bottom of the Elerium barrel, and it'll only take another botched Supply Raid to empty said barrel.

We're hitting back against the MOCX in a few hours too, something about crashing a training exercise. Not sure how good of an idea it would be to rush headfirst into an entire camp of specialist-soldiers-in-training, likely flanked by a few powerful aliens as well. But again, I'm not in charge, so I guess all that I can do is make sure Menace is geared up well enough to survive all that. Cristal still insists on the Psi armour, even when I told her that the WAR suit is a hundred times more durable and definitely worth the payoff of losing some psionic power, but she's adamant on fulfilling her duty. I don't know why the commander always insists on bringing her out, I mean we got another Magus from that mission who never saw a mission, at least let her have a run out.

Look, I just don't want another friend taken away from me. Psionics have always been so appreciated by me, and after what happened to Cyla I'm determined to make sure Cristal doesn't end up with the same fate.

Vlog 57. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 6 March 2036

*Vlog opens with a side-on view of Shen sitting in front of a monitor, intently staring at a screenful of sequences.*

Be careful what you wish for, kids. A few days ago I was hoping that we would have some insight into ADVENT's true agenda. Well, we got it, but I'm still scouring through the data, trying to disprove it. The conclusion is most probably accurate, but I'm desperate for it to not be the truth. *She takes a deep breath* All those gene clinics, they weren't really trying to help humanity cure their ailments. Honestly, that's more of a side effect, because what they were doing is screening individuals with desirable genetic sequences, and then taking them to the Blacksite to...be distilled, I guess? I didn't dig to find the gruesome details... frankly I don't want to know. If anyone watching this is sickly curious, it's all on Tygan's computer. That guy seems to find stuff like this incredibly fascinating, potentially accounting for his affinity for ADVENT burgers.

This is all for that Avatar project. Given how many facilities we've blown up, you'd think we'd know a bit more about this project, but we're still drawing a complete blank. Perhaps the coordinates we got from the Vial data could be informative, but I don't think I can handle any more information of this nature. I mean... how can things get any more disgusting than distilling humans down for DNA?

Ugh ok... I need to get onto something else. This is getting too much. Kage and Cristal got quite close after that MOCX mission, and while I'm glad Cristal's making connections on the ship, Noodles probably isn't going to be too happy about this. Last I heard Kage and Noodles were taking a real liking to each other, and I'm not sure Noodles will take this too well. Or maybe she's still too busy taking care of her hair after that last deployment to notice.

Vlog 58. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 15 March 2036

DuBois must be a little apprehensive about going on missions with the more experienced guys, because she always seems to be targetted and prioritised by the enemies. Not that it's too much of an issue, because although she can't save the whole squad like Filidh or Noodles, she can keep herself up just fine. Aside from that though, the last mission was more or less normal, and I guess that's what we want after the recent revelations. Just to be back in familiar territory and to feel like we've got everything under control.

Also, anyone else thinks that the Warlock talks just a little bit too much? I get that he's an all-powerful Psionic, but all he's ever done is send Spectral zombies our way and make cryptic threats over the comms. Personally, I don't think he's even half the warrior the Assassin was, but he sure has an ego to make up for it. I think I might ask the Commander to go after him next, just to shut him up if nothing else. Honestly, if I have to hear one more comment about how great he thinks he is, I'm going out there with a wrench.

Firebrand keeps talking about St Patrick's Day and Whiskey, and while I appreciate her trying to keep up the traditions of the old world, it's a little scary to have your pilot be this passionate about alcohol, especially before deployment. Heck, she better not have started drinking already like some troops have, because I will not be repairing any Skyranger defects caused by drunk driving.

Vlog 59. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 20 March 2036.

Menace dragged back the Viper King the other day after the mission. The pelt is a little worse for wear after Freyja got a little trigger happy and emptied and entire clip into him, but at least she got the job done. We have enough dead vipers in the freezer to skin and patch up the holes anyways, even with the Reapers quite literally chewing through a couple every week.

Looks as though they all had fun out there. Ando messed around with the ghost grenade I made as a joke and turns out it is actually quite effective in bamboozling ADVENT. I don't suppose that Purifier was ever trained to deal with enemies which can suddenly disappear, but I guess this is just another of the unconventional tactics we take so much pride in. Also, the bio division of ADVENT seems to have weaponized even the Lost now. If they apply that technology en masse we might be in some deep trouble, because there's literally an infinite supply of Lost for them to weaponize and throw at us.

Someone in the Engineering department had the brilliant idea to collaborate with Tygan to make a new type of gauntlet from the remains of Hive Chrysalids, and they claimed that it employs symbiosis with the user to improve its efficiency and deadliness. Personally, I'd rather not be that intimate with something made from Chrysalids, but I feel like we have no shortage of crazy people on board who'd be pretty up to the power trip. I just wish that the commander wouldn't give this much support to gimmicky projects like these. We've been short on communication channels for ages, and the Psi Ops are still waiting on their advanced Psi amp but noooo, apparently a Chrysalid glove is a bigger priority. *She rolls her eyes*

The commander has ordered a squad to investigate the Blacksite vial coordinates, and I'm not sure if my sanity can handle what we might find there. We now know that no atrocity is beyond the ADVENT administration, and I just hope that what we find there won't break us any more.

Vlog 60. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 21 March 2036

The coordinates led us to a...production facility for ADVENT grunts. Just tubes, with fully grown ADVENT soldiers inside. We knew all along that they couldn't have been human volunteers like ADVENT tells us, but I don't think anyone expected ADVENT to be literally making their front line. Given enough biological materials, it's likely that they would never run out of grunts to throw at us.

We also retrieved a specimen that's very similar to the stasis suit that the commander had. I haven't dared to open it yet, out of fear of what I might find (and also the unsettlingly high psionic readings coming from it), but I think it might be a prototype of some kind. A genetic template, perhaps, for the grunts to be cloned from. Whatever it is, once we're done with it I'm convinced that we'll know their endgame. I gotta go thank Esti for hauling that thing back too. It's scary enough to be deployed against a Chosen at an ADVENT facility, and more so when you're traversing the battleground and gunfire with a stasis suit on your back.

Speaking of the Chosen Hunter, he's...honestly a bit of a joke. We were all making fun of how quickly he went down on the mission. You'd think that an all-powerful demigod soldier would take more than a few shotgun shots before going down, but I guess he's not too used to close ranged combat, even with that armour plating that makes him invincible to melee. Having said that, at this point most aliens we encounter are dropping like flies. Quite a different scene to a year ago when we couldn't even take down a Berserker.

Vlog 61. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 30 March 2036.

I had my concerns about having this many psionics on board, since even a small mind trick gone astray could potentially lead to disaster. I didn't really want to see what would happen, but I still had the extremely dubious privilege to. Otherwise, I don't think I can come up with an explanation as to why the commander decided to send all six of them out on the Facility mission, with only magnetic weapons.

I think we all could guess what happened next. Some mechanical enemies showed up, then some sectopods... notably these don't have minds so mind tricks worked as well as throwing rocks at them. I doubt he actually has any idea how taxing these psionic abilities are to the operatives either, because from what he ordered, he seems to think that a soulfire spell is as effortless as firing a shot. Not all of them came back either... Baxter took a heavy shot from a Mech and went down. It's a hell of a hit for morale when soldiers die, but when their lives are needlessly blown like this? I can only imagine the outrage in the barracks.

Cristal was clearly pretty shaken as well. She wasn't too hot on the idea to start with, and when she came back injured... I doubt that changed her opinion for the better. There shouldn't be any lasting effects, but I don't think she'd be too eager to get back onto the field. For that mission at least, the commander seemed to regard the troops as no more than chess pieces. Or maybe all our recent success has gotten to his head, and he's starting to get the impression that we are invincible. Although I can't directly challenge his commands, I can't just sit and watch our soldiers take unnecessary wounds or die in vain. There has to be more I can do to protect them, maybe better armour, or improved support gear. But in the meantime, Menace, keep your wits about you, and survive. You all deserve to see the end of this war.

Vlog 62. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 2 April 2036.

I did promise that I would do all I can to make sure Menace is protected out there, no matter what dubious decisions the commander makes, and I'm glad that I'm making progress. If nothing else, I'm surprised that I've been able to dredge out more ideas from the apparently empty barrel of armour development. Though the Titan armour might not be the most elegant piece of work I've ever come up with, it does what I want it to. It's walking bulwark that should be impermeable to anything that ADVENT can muster, and the impressive thing is I don't even know how I came up with this invincible concoction. This was the result of six hours in the workshop after that last mission, and I guess some desperate muse must have taken over when I couldn't come up with a new design after all that work. Quasar you better not lose that thing...

Unfortunately that's overshadowed by a much flashier Serpent Suit, complete with the snake hood because apparently it's all the rage in the ADVENT city centres right now. Good work by the engineers who managed to pack all those features into a simple suit... oh by the way this is like 90% Viper King hide. That stuff is surprisingly tough and ideal armour material, but the guys probably won't be comfortable wearing the skin of a dead snake. It doesn't change the fact that it still looked fantastic on our resident pretty boy Sam Spud, judging from how everyone stared at him.

Cristal and a few others got a hold of the Serpent suit yesterday, and she used some psionic powers to wriggle it into my quarters when I was asleep. I'm glad that she's back to her normal cheery self after the tragic loss of Baxter, or maybe jokes and giggles is how she's trying to cope. Nonetheless, I don't appreciate being scared out of my mind at 3AM and screaming loud enough to wake up Bradford on the other side of the ship.

Vlog 63. Chief Engineer Lily Shen.

Menace finally took out the headquarters of the MOCX, so now we don't have to worry about ADVENT's own guerilla division and can focus on mowing down their seemingly more mindless alien subordinates. A little part of me still hurts because we had to kill our fellow human beings in cold blood, but I have to remember that they're not us. They may still be biologically human, but they have lost all their humanity.

The new armour suits were great, and the commander seemed to appreciate the additional angle of attack that they opened up. They were so versatile that the team was able to deal with a Sectopod that the Shadow Chamber conveniently forgot about... again. Nobody got too hurt or anything, but they've all but stopped trusting my pre-deployment reports. Whatever, there is no such thing as being too prepared.

Bradford has picked up signatures of a fourth alien ruler in the vicinity of another ADVENT facility, but this one seemed to be very heavily indicative of a Chrysalid hive. I have no idea why ADVENT would allow these savage things guard their valued research, but if it's an attempt to scare us away...well it's working. At least for me. I hate those bugs.

Vlog 64. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 5 April 2036

Commander, I know how much you want to clear Earth of aliens, but I'm so glad that you let the giant bug monster go when she wanted to go. I'm surprised that something this organic can put up this much of a fight against us, but that's more or less due to its size and its carapace. Anyways, it begs the question, how the hell did a chrysalid get this big? Nope. Hold that thought. Don't want to know. Just kill it and throw an incendiary bomb on it.

God... so many chrysalids today. I thought it was another Shadow Chamber bug (haha you get it ROV-R? You know.. bug... nevermind), but it did turn out to be my worst nightmare. Overheard Bradford muttering something about how it was Newfoundland all over again, so I guess I can take comfort in knowing that everyone is creeped out by those things. Also very glad that the X4 explosion probably purged the whole area of chrysalids.

I think the more interesting observation from today is that the Hive chrysalids seem to not get along with the ADVENT controlled ones, which suggest some independent control, probably from the Queen. It's concerning... because even if we root out ADVENT, it would prove to be very difficult to get rid of these feral chrysalids. However, in the mean time, we'll enjoy the intra-species chrysalid fight club, which, by the way, is fast becoming very popular amongst the gamblers onboard.

The second resistance comms centre is finally up and running, and it's probably the missing piece to allow us to finally wage a global war against ADVENT. Maybe we can also use this additional communication network to track chrysalid Hive activity to make the cleanup after the war a lot easier...

Damn. I've definitely got chrysalids on my mind. Not a fan of that. Might drown it out with something at the bar. Think they stocked some of the stuff Firebrand drinks when we stopped off at Iceland...

Vlog 65. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. April 2036

Aly Stevens... how did you get there? I told you to be careful of your surroundings when you do your research outdoors, but I guess you were a little too absorbed in your pinecone chase or whatever. Anyways, must have been a hell of a scary experience, what with the sectopod romping around, and the Warlock, and nearly getting shot in the head by Chuckles. Oh I'm just so glad you're safe... being a resistance is a dangerous line of work, and you've done well to survive until now. I don't even know how you did that with your less-than-adequate safety apparatus. Put a shirt on goddammit.

She also reported seeing a humanoid enemy before she got trapped in the subway. A figure with white hair and a purple face mask, carrying a psi-amp. Even from the brief contact, she reports immense psionic power emanating from this...thing. Could it potentially be the Avatar? Tygan has discovered that the Elders potentially have need for a biological receptacle to replace their rapidly degenerating bodies, and maybe this thing... this Avatar... is what ADVENT has been working towards. Perhaps humans are the linchpin to this Avatar... which does explain their interest in us.

Either way, the only way we can find out is by autopsy, and I'm not even sure how we can get our hands on a dead one of those things. However, since we've had reasonable success from ripping data out of Codices, perhaps we can use an even more invasive form of data collection on them... namely breaking out the Skulljack again. Unfortunately I haven't been able to make the method of use any less... graphic. At least this time the target isn't organic.

Vlog 66. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 21 April 2036

Well, now we know that Codices don't take being skulljacked very well. The data-collection procedure carried out on a being of pure data resulted in the creation of an Avatar. It was... nothing any human has seen before, and we probably would have preferred to have encountered it in a lab somewhere instead of on the battlefield with screaming civilians. Anyways, we assume that this was a prototype, given the fact that it was very quickly eliminated and Menace was able to bring it back for dissection. And for the first time in recorded history, Tygan seemed pretty apprehensive about cutting into this thing, potentially due to the ephemeral image of the Elders floating above Avatar when we encountered it.

The biological heavy weapon is growing on some of the Avenger crew... metaphorically of course, otherwise it'd be kind of gross. I think they've named it Dexter and it's now acting as the main source of food waste disposal. It seems to have no shortage of Rippers to spit out during missions as well, but they never seem to last very long before the commander decided that those little things are too cute for this world.

The most important revelation, however, is what Tygan found out from the Stasis suit. It appears that human DNA is the binding agent that holds the aliens together, so to speak. It allows for different fragments to be added to create the diverse alien fauna we know and love today. Anyways, it turns out that the screening processes, they were looking for humans with sequences conferring psionic competence, and melting them down to create the ultimate psionic being. Knowing that, the Avatar Menace fought is probably no more than just a shadow of what a true Avatar can do.

Vlog 67. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 21 April 2036

Commander, normally people don't hope for a huge bug monster to show up on their missions, but I guess you work in your own mysterious ways. Then again, that sneaky General led Menace on quite a wild goose chase, and having the Queen there as well would have probably given the General the opportunity to get out of there.

Maybe he's just curious as to what the engineers can do with the Hive Queen's corpse once they retrieve it. Hmph... not a damn thing if I had my way. There's no way I'm going to touch that thing. Normal chrysalids are enough of a challenge already. I'd probably just give it to the Reapers to take care of their diet for a month.

Word is that we're going after the Warlock soon. Pretty happy about that, since he has an affinity for hijacking our broadcasting channels and giving longwinded egotistical speeches about the judgement of the Elders and whatnot. It was probably threatening the first couple of times, but now it's just the daily reminder to check the security of our communication lines. Still though, I'd appreciate it if we knocked him down a few notches. His ego is so insufferably inflated, one would think he's probably overcompensating.

Anyways, the Shadow Chamber shows that the stronghold entrance is pretty lightly guarded, so it shouldn't be a problem getting in as long as there isn't a stealthy sectopod sneaking around there. I mean... with the Warlock, it's never the firepower you have to worry about. Here's hoping that nobody goes insane in there, but Cristal is coming along with her soothing psionic mind tricks.

OH AND BRING ME BACK THE GUN!

Vlog 68. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 22 April 2036

The Warlock again proved that he was 90% bark and 10% ego, because Menace was able to take down his stronghold without much of a problem. Quasar's experience against the Warlock also proved to be useful, as he knew just how to attack to maximise the amount of pain. But all those confusing combat technicalities aside, they brought me the gun! Although it seems very old fashioned, Cristal indicated a significant aversion to it, and closer examination suggests that it can be extra deadly against psionically capable units. Anyways, guess someone has jealousy issues about maaaaybe not being the psi warrior out there.

Jokes aside, I can't imagine how nerve wracking it must be to take the fight straight to the Chosen. After all, the stronghold is their domain, and they could have easily trapped the whole squad in there and be done with a lot of trouble. But I guess overcoming insurmountable odds is our job at this point. However, it does make me quite concerned as to what we'll have to do to take the fight to the Elders themselves. The most relevant thing we have right now is that gate, and I'm still not convinced that moving through that is particularly healthy.

Vlog Nice. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 30 April 2036

Woo. Thank god we cleaned up the enemies before the Hive Queen got to Menace. I know the commander definitely wouldn't have let her run away this time, and that probably meant bug dissection time for the science crew on the Avenger. I don't think anyone bar Tygan really wants to see inside the Chrysalid Queen either. Worst case scenario, we reenact the Newfoundland incident onboard the Avenger, and we definitely can't solve it by air striking this time.

*Lights suddenly blink and Shen looks up with an alarmed expression* Oh. This feels kind of familiar. I hope it's not what I think it is... *She switches off the recording in a hurry*

\- God knows how long later-

*Recording starts again* Well. That stupid sass-mouth caught up to us, and shot us down again. I guess it has been too long since the last one of these, and I've gotten careless about keeping the Avenger in safe airspaces. And yes, Hunter. The Avenger is probably a hell of a lot smaller than you thought, but it took you long enough to find it and guess why that is?

Shadow Chamber's reporting a full party out there. 30 aliens not including unaccounted-for Sectopods. Good luck out there Menace. Don't get distracted by the Chosen... heck. Turn off the intercom if you have to. You all know the orders at this point.

Vlog 70. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 5 May 2036

Another failed attempt to take down the Avenger. Heck, this one was probably even less effective than before. They only really scratched the plating, which is a little annoying since we just repainted it, but hey. At least we're still flying. Speaking of which, I do wonder how they keep getting some sucker to pay for these full-frontal assaults. I don't suppose giant Elerium power cells and stealthy forged Sectopods come too cheap. Or maybe being a totalitarian occupying force means you have access to all these resources to blow on stuff like this. I wouldn't know.

If I must say, the Chosen Hunter is a lot less zealous than his siblings. He spent most of the assault jumping around the back and occasionally marking one of the troops for a shot. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's only doing this to keep the Elders off his back and he'd rather be out there hunting Berserkers or whatever. Some people on the Avenger have even considered trying to bribe him to our side like we did with some of the ADVENT soldiers, but I think it's going to take more than just supplies and a few ADVENT burgers to pay off the Hunter. Anyways, I'm feeling as though he was conscripted into the Elders' service, like all of their alien subordinates. If that is the case, it is quite tragic, but it's still fun to watch him get shot from all sides while stuck in a block of ice.

Chuckles somehow convinced the Commander to give him all the best toys again, and he did well enough... I guess...for him at least. Racked up a few kills even after getting an acid bath and impressed quite a few people, me included. Seems to have mildly gotten to his head though. Someone remind him that he needed alien-level technology to hit his shots.

Oh, and speaking of dubious competence. Tygan had the bright idea of strapping the codex brain to ROV-R and sending it through the Psionic gate. We got about two seconds of footage before some failsafe kicked in and shot ROV-R back out. Repairs were needed, but there shouldn't be any lasting effects. Tygan suggested that maybe both mechanical and organic components are required for admission through the gate, but he's out of his mind if he think I'm going to let him put something 'organic' through that.

But those two seconds... we saw some... landscape. A fortress of sorts with significant indications of psionic activity. Could this perhaps be a gate to the headquarters of the Elders? In that case, we might have a way to take the fight right to them.

Vlog 71. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 10 May 2036

Eureka. We solved it.

That Avatar thing we retrieved. That was the linchpin to the psionic gate problem we had. Its genetic composition is tailored for passage through the psionic gate, and like I suspected, this may have been what the Elders have been working towards. A surrogate body to host their psionic potential.

The problem is that the genetic composition requires also biological signatures from a living subject, that is, we need it to be alive.

Since the only one we have is dead, the only possible, albeit radical solution, was to use it to make a new one. All the information from the blacksite vial, to the forge specimen, we can combine them, like the aliens would, to make our own Avatar.

The other glaring issue is the control of this Avatar. This is unlike any control scheme I've ever encountered. It's like how the ADVENT officers and grunts are controlled...via a psionic network. For someone who has trouble hacking normal networks, this can prove to be a significant issue. Besides, we have only one viable candidate, who is known to have survived a direct intrusion and withdrawal from this network...the Commander himself.

This is... terrifying. Not only is this wild guesses based on the theory we pieced together from research, who's to say that the commander can survive that kind of trauma again? But the fact remains that this is our only option to beating the Elders. I'll work towards making this as secure of a procedure as I can manage, but this is far beyond what anything anyone has ever taught me.

You're in true uncharted territory now, Lily. You've always wanted to be a pioneer, to develop something so new, so creative that would change the world. Well, you're pioneering, just not in the way you had imagined, but you might be on the brink of something that has far greater impact than you thought you were capable of.

Vlog 72. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. 29 May 2036.

Well. The commander finally got his Chryssalid Hive Queen, at the cost of letting ADVENT transmit their new cipher, which means it's going to be incredibly hard for us to listen in on the ADVENT transmissions. The resistance was pretty upset about the dubious decision-making there too. While the cipher might just be an annoyance to us, it can prove dangerous to the Resistance outposts, since their communications are at an even higher risk of being 'caught', so to speak.

Still, given how the Spokesman sacrificed himself just so we can have a shot at the Network tower to take down ADVENT once and for all, the Commander's decisions still seem a little disrespectful to me. Although I can understand his curiosity about the Hive Queen, he has to remember that he's responsible for the lives of so many innocents, which are probably endangered by this wild goose chase.

Mecput came back from his Covert Op with some valuable combat experience, and I've been working on conditioning his systems to work more independently of his control. I've been experiencing with the tactical sensors in his suit, and if the new circuitry checks out, his suit should automatically fire at any aggressive enemy targets. However I might need to redefine 'aggressive' in the system parameters, because one of the engineers made a joke about Mecput the other day and nearly ate a clip of Elerium rounds.

In more gross news, the dissection of the Hive Queen gave us some ideas for the use of the Carapace, which is a marvel of biological engineering, given how light yet durable it is. The proving ground team had a field day with the development of the Hive armour too, adding not only a Chryssalid helmet, but also controllable armour-shredding Claws. I wasn't sure if anyone would be ok with wearing the skin of a giant Chryssalid, but apparently Colonel Grim was into stuff like this. Anyways, I hope Cristal doesn't find out about this thing, or we're going to have a repeat of the Viper suit incident.

Vlog 73. Chief Engineer Lily Shen. Doesn'tmatteranymore 2036

You'd think that the ADVENT network tower- the central hub of the psionic network- would be more heavily guarded, but I guess it's their hubris in believing that XCOM wouldn't get this far. Hope they've learned their lesson about not leaving the literal heart of their operations wide open, not that there will be a 'next time' when it would be relevant.

Anyways, three faction soldiers and a chrysalid was enough to break into their network and allowed Tygan and I to reprogram the signal going from the tower, and give every ADVENT unit in the world a pretty bad migraine. All my life, I've been god-awful at hacking, and I thought the Spokesman must have been pretty desperate to leave this crux of the operation to me. But I suppose the past year of working through alien tech, from clearing out the Avenger's systems, to decoding data pads, was more valuable training than all of those programming classes at the Engineering Academy.

The disruption pulse took a while to kick in, so the reinforcements were able to get a few hits in on the Skyranger. Not that it will matter anymore, because the transport to the final battle is in the next room. It's not the most reliable plan- after all it's all alien tech that we've only known about for a week- but it's the only lead we've got. After all, this whole war has been us going after one long shot after the other, and I don't see a reason why our luck will fail us now.

The footage we broadcasted was a nice touch too- not only on the official broadcast, but also sent to every Resistance contact we have. The people deserved to know what they've put their trust in, and there's nothing quite like mob justice against despotic oppression. Now that the people know the truth, ADVENT has a full on war on their hands now, and there's no way they can contain a planet of people ready to kick them off. Oh, and that part with the Speaker getting beaten by a crowd was pretty satisfying. That guy talked way too much.

Pre-Operation Leviathan.

Memo for Col. Spud, from your friendly local Chief Engineer.

Hey Potato. No I'm not apologising for that nickname. You've been around since the very beginning, and I remember seeing you come back onto the Avenger all beaten up, and thinking to myself that this pretty boy isn't going to last very long. Did you prove me wrong! You've become the guardian angel of every squad you've been deployed on, watching over them with finger on the trigger. Well, please watch over Menace one more time for me. While I may not trust the integrity of the armour I make, I trust in your ability to knock out anyone who even thinks about shooting at our guys. Vigilo Confido, and I look forward to celebrating with you when you return triumphant.

Memo for Col. Lord, from your friendly local Chief Engineer.

You crazy man you. How are you still alive? As much of a public health hazard you are, you've been absolutely invaluable in always being the first to volunteer to take my grenades out for a spin. Heck, if it wasn't for you, we'd still be using frags! Others might be a little apprehensive of being within a 20m radius of a mildly deranged pyromaniac, but I've always thought you stroke fear into the hearts of ADVENT with your face paint and your mastery of explosions. You've always wanted to see what's on the other side of the gate, right? Here's your chance to, and then to blow it to bits after you're sick of the view. Vigilo confido, and if you come back alive I'll make you a mechanised little Muton figure.

Memo for Col. Mech-put, from your friendly local Chief Engineer.

I have always had immense respect for you, Jayko. Not too many people would gladly sacrifice themselves for a better chance to defeat ADVENT, and yet here you are. I had no idea how you would cope being converted into a half-machine, but you've proven yourself to be nothing short of an extraordinary bulwark for Menace, and far more than the idea in my head you started off being. Even under fire, I've never seen you waver in your resolve to protect the team. Maybe wearing a giant-exoskeleton does wonders for your courage, but you are truly a warrior without peer, and the Resistance is proud to have you as one of our own. Now get out there, and show the Elders what a proper modified being can do. It's going to be the last thing they'll ever see. Vigilo confido, and I look forward to chiding you for scraping up your carapace again.

Memo for Col. Rogue, from your friendly local Chief Engineer.

I must say, I'm sorry I never got to know you... Maybe it was the voice muffler. But anyways, it was pretty clear that you had no trouble cutting down ADVENT left right and centre. You must have scared them pretty bad too, because for days at a time after your deployments, the ADVENT comms would have been full of terrified comments about that skull-faced XCOM trooper who just wiped the floor with their soldiers. I'm sure they won't be too happy to see you rock up with their Assassin's weapons in tow. Vigilo confido, and go remind the aliens why they were so afraid of you. Oh, and you might also enjoy the Chryssalid suit, for added terror value, of course.

Memo for Col. Filidh, from your friendly local Chief Engineer.

Our most trusted medic and everyone's best friend. You kept everyone in one piece when my handiwork armour couldn't. Your medical expertise is quite literally the only thing keeping us together while I struggled to make improvements beyond Kevlar, and the fact that we're here taking the fight to the Elders is quite the testament to your skill. While you may not be as flashy with your kills as Spud, or indomitable as Jayko, you are the solid backbone of Menace that watches over the injured and brings swift Scottish fury on those who would harm them. As a Scotsman, I'm sure you're proud of your heritage of a race who fought for their freedom, and I'm sure you'll bring this pride to the battlefield, as you fight for the freedom of the human race. Vigilo confido, and if you come back alive I'll tell you where Bradford hides his Whiskey.

Memo for Col. The Wind, from your friendly local Chief Engineer.

The marine is always overlooked as just an extra source of bullets, but they'd be a fool to overlook you. Your presence on the battlefield is undeniable, and you laying down the challenge with your Cannon is the stuff of nightmares for the enemy. You've been with us from the beginning, and I've never doubted your prowess on the field, even from the start when you were nothing more than a rookie with a gun. I've taken the liberty to assign the Icarus suit to you, and I hope you'll make use of its propulsion engines to rain justice and bullets down on whoever stands in your way. So get out there, Colonel, and fight the good fight. Show ADVENT that discipline and skill is more than enough to deal with whatever they can muster. Vigilo confido,

alles gute!


End file.
